Religion: Rededication

The shabby little church stood just off a dirt road four miles southeast of rural Pimento, Ind. Rain dripped through the ceiling, and the wind worried at the rags and papers stuffed into broken window panes. Squirrels scuttled in & out of the root, and the lights no longer worked. For the ten or 15 oldsters in their 703 or beyond who persisted in coming to worship at the Methodist Church’s down-at-heel Fletcher Chapel, there was a plain choice: fix up or give up. That was four years ago.

Last week, in the late Indiana summer, 65-year-old Fletcher Chapel stood as firm as its surrounding maples and oaks—still a modest roadside church, but a strengthened landmark in the rural heartland of U.S. religion.*

Wax & Wallpaper. After years of patching and making-do, the little church had finally had a major overhauling. As he arrived to lead the rededication service, the Rev. Samuel W. Robinson, superintendent of the 110 churches in the Methodists’ Vmcennes District, could hardly believe his eyes. Sunlight gleamed on freshly waxed pews and on baskets of asters, zinnias and chrysanthemums. There were new cream-colored walls, a sturdy upright piano, and new runners on the aisles. Crisp new hymnals filled the racks.

When the morning service was over the women, in their Sunday-best print dresses, bustled off to the new basement to fix a country-style dinner. Meanwhile, Brother Robinson heard the quarterly progress reports on thethree churches—Fletcher Chapel, Ebenezer Church and Pimento Church that make up 35-year-old Rev. Eldon O. Gourley’s Pimento circuit.

Sunday school attendance, said Brother Gourley, had jumped 20% and the turnout for services was better, too. “We’re running 35 to 45 worshipers at Fletcher on Sunday, 65 at Ebenezer and 50 at Pimento . » The three district churches had raised more than $2,000 for such improvements as the Ebenezer’s new electric organ, an oil furnace and wallpaper for the parsonage.

Great Hopes. Business over, the menfolk went downstairs to the long tables loaded with fried chicken, beef pork meat loaf; white and sweet potatoes fixed every way—fried, mashed, baked and roasted; a variety of salads, vegetables, muts, cakes and pies. Everybody ate hearty, and what was left went home with the women.

The church still owed $200 on its $2,700 worth of overhauling, but a $50 donation started off a collection that briskly raised enough to cover the debt and put an extra £40 into the fund for an oil heater. Brother Robinson glowed. Finances were looking up and the young people were again taking an interest in church. Brother Gourley ran his eyes proudly over the chapel as the late afternoon sun flooded through its new windows. Said he: “We have great hopes ”

* Methodists, who outnumber any other Protestant group in the U.S., maintain 60% of their 40,397 churches in small communities with congregations of fewer than 300 members